Persecution against Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour is expanding to her defenders

In July 2014, when 16 years old Palestinian boy from East Jerusalem, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped and burned alive, it was a shock for the Arab Palestinian public. People felt that the atrocity was a result of constant anti-Arab incitement by Israel’s top politicians and mainstream media. They also felt that the Israeli police and courts are not very concerned to prevent or punish violence when the perpetrators are Jew and the victims are Arab. Arabs were protesting all over the country. Hundreds of Arab activists shared a profile picture on Facebook, designed like obituary, saying “I’m the next

“I am the next martyr” – protesting the killing of the innocents

martyr”. Its meaning was clear for everybody: while children are randomly kidnapped from their streets and murdered, any of us can be the next victim.

More than a year later, in October 2015, this very same profile picture on the Facebook page of poet Dareen Tatour was wrongly interpreted by Israeli stupid “intelligence” as a declaration that she is going to make a suicide attack. Her house was surrounded at a pre-dawn raid by a big force of Israeli police and border guards and she was arrested. In the first interrogation they told her that she wrote that she wants to be a martyr (“Shahida” in Arabic). Soon they understood their mistake, but they wouldn’t apologize and let their victim go free. They started digging deeper in her Facebook page and found a poem and some posts that they also maliciously misinterpreted, this time as “incitement”. So started the saga of “The Jewish State against Poet Dareen Tatour”, which is now a world famous example of Israel’s unjust persecution of Palestinian arts and the freedom of political protest.

From protesters to victims

Just like Dareen Tatour protested the fate of other victims and became a victim herself, now the state of Israel is turning against those people that protest the persecution of the poet.

A group of Jewish and Palestinian artists plan to stage a protest event in solidarity with Tatour in the Yaffa (Jaffa) “Arab-Hebrew Theater” on August 30th, before her trial is going to resume. They prepared a rich artistic program including reading from Tatour’s poetry and original works by other poets, and staged reading from the trial’s minutes. The full text of the invitation with the program is cited below as the last section of this post.

Today, Monday, August 21, Haaretz published (in Hebrew) a long news item titled “The Ministry of Culture requested the treasury to examine whether the Jaffa Theater violated the Nakba Law”. This is the beginning of a process, directly centered against the hosting of the solidarity event on August 30th. It aims to cut the budget of the theater and might even end with the theater having to pay destructive high fine of up to 3 million shekel.

The tail wagging the dog

The whole process shows how extremist elements are now driving “mainstream” Israeli politics and government institutions are mobilized by populist-racist politicians like Miri Regev to serve their anti-democratic agenda.

was selected for the event page (copied here) is an example of the worst kind of bloody propaganda. Till now the Facebook event of this counter-demonstration has 5 people signed as “attending” (and 15 “interested”), compared to 136 “going” (and 239 “interested”) for the solidarity event.

But Shai Glick is not alone. If he doesn’t have the public, he can mobilize the whole power of the state. On August 7 Israeli “mainstream” site “Maariv” reported (in Hebrew) that as a result of a complaint by Mr. Glick, a little known Knesset member from the governing Likud, Sharren Haskel, sent a concerned letter to Ms. Regev, the Culture minister, reporting the solidarity event, repeating Glick’ accusations and requesting the minister to “handle it”.

Hence comes the current initiative by minister Regev, demanding investigation by the ministry of finance which is responsible for the financing of theaters and has the authority to reduce or abolish funding or imposing fines.

The Nakba law

Everybody is somewhat perplexed by the whole process, as it is a new attempt to use new laws and procedures to squeeze freedom of expression. The common knowledge in Israel is that even as Palestinians are persecuted for anything or nothing, the freedom of expression for the Jewish population was more or less secure. Now the event in Yaffa may become a test case of the new laws and the old assumptions.

Regev and Mandelblit, changing the rules of the play to shut up theaters

The Knesset seems to be always busy passing new racist and anti-democratic laws, so much so that people relate to the “status quo” and tend to ignore these new laws, hoping that they will not be implemented. Specifically, the new “Nakba law”, which is the legal base of the investigation against the Yaffa theater, was almost ignored, as it mostly speaks about the denial of government funding. People were wondering are there any government funded institutions that actually commemorate the Palestinian Nakba?

But the so-called “Nakba law” is not only about commemorating the Nakba. It counts many possible offences that deserve denial of funds, including questioning the “Jewish democratic” nature of the state – i.e. opposing Jewish supremacy. And lately, in a new twist to the plot, the government’s attorney general agreed with Ms. Regev to hold theaters responsible not only to their own plays and programs but also to the contents of any event held in their premises.

In a detailed report in Haaretz (August 16, in Hebrew) about the consultations between Regev and Mandelblit, the attorney general, about the strengthening of political supervision of theaters, she is cited as saying: “Hear me well. I’m not ready to be laughed at. I have 20 complaints about the Yaffa Theater. They say that in the Yaffa Theater there are extreme organizations that call for boycott of Israel”. So all that Mr. Glick and his likes should do is write 20 letters, and they become the Ten Commandments for the minister.

“Al-Midan”, the Arabic theater from Haifa, was persecuted for similar reasons over the last two years and as of now is still closed. Now, with the new law, the Yaffa Theater might be the next martyr.

“Are you envious?” – This is what Iris asked me while we were waiting in Taibeh for the bus from Yaffa to come with the demonstrators… “No”, was my answer, “seeing such wonderful things happening in such places around us like Yaffa and Akka makes me happy. It shows that we are doing the right things.”

Revolution in one square – but how lovely!

What was happening in Yaffa over the last months was very special. As a response to hunger strikes by Palestinian political prisoners, led by Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh, the youth activists in Yaffa declared a permanent daily demonstration is the clock’s square, beginning Sunday, February 3, 2013.

They kept demonstrating every evening for 47 consecutive days. Open meetings before or after the daily demonstrations proved a volcano of creativity. Every detail was discussed. New measures were taken to add interest and effectiveness. New activists were joining daily and many simply stayed as part of the group. After 47 days, as many activists were completely exhausted and out-of-focus with their work, study and family obligations, they decided to switch to weekly demonstrations (every Thursday), with a view to reach out to convey the new Yaffa spirit to other places and organizations.

The slogans, of course, were both democratic and revolutionary (but generally avoided unnecessary exaggerations). But does the intensity of the demonstrations merit the “revolutionary” designation? Isn’t revolution about the falling of governments?

Well, many governments fall without revolutionary movements. And an essential aspect of the revolutionary movement is the intense involvement of the masses, which creates a different thermo-dynamics of the Human matter. In Yaffa, over a relatively short period, the intensity of the involvement of the cadres created new dynamics, accumulating experiences, consciousness and energies.

These new dynamics, now organized also in Facebook in a group called “The Activists of the Clock Square”, were expressed in the leading role of the youth and especially women and girls. Jewish activists were assimilated as natural participants in a youthful Palestinian democratic movement under the Palestinian national flag. The first thing about the revolution is how much people can change and achieve in a short period when they are so intensively involved and openly cooperate in the struggle for a just cause.

Exporting the revolution – Junctions of freedom day

They started at 11:30 with a demonstration in the Clock square, on the home ground. We, coming from Haifa, waited to meet them on the main street of Taibeh at 13:00. Some 60 people came in the bus and some cars from Yaffa, and it was a lively demonstration.

On the next stop, in Kalansawah, the bus entered to the center of the township. It paid the effort, as many bystanders that were astonished by the revolutionary slogans and the chanting youthful demonstrators standing on the central circle of their sleepy township applauded us from their cars and from surrounding pavements or even joined in.

In Bakka AlGharbiya, a town with long experience with Palestinian resistance and political prisoners of its own, local activists and youth were waiting for us in the local circle on the main road. On the Kafr Qara junction, on the main Wadi ‘Ara highway to the north, thousands of cars full with Israelis going north for their weekend vacation, were passing by or waiting the green light while we were waving Palestinian flags and shouting for the freedom of the prisoners.

On the next stop, in Ar’ara, we staged a small march from the junction to the home of the cousins Maher and Karim Younes, who spent more than 30 years in Israeli prisons and Israel still refuses to let them free, not even in the prisoner’s exchange.

The last stop was at 17:00, in front of Mejido military prison, where many Palestinians from the west Bank are held in harsh conditions and where prisoner Arafat Jaradat was killed by torture in the hands of Israeli General Security Service on February 23, 2013.

Yaffa spirits in Um Al-Fahm demo against the killing of women

But this was not the end of this long day of spreading the revolutionary spirit.

On Sunday, April 28, a 30 years old mother of three, Muna Mahajnah was shot dead in her home in Um Al-Fahm, probably on the background of family disputes. Her brother was arrested and accused of killing her.

In response to this murder, a group of local activists called for a protest demo on Friday 3/5 at 18:00 on the first circle on the city’s main entrance. The plan was for the Yaffa bus to continue from Mejido prison and join the demonstration in Um Al-Fahm. But due to the pressing schedule, we didn’t have anything to eat all day, so most of the activist went to look for something to eat before joining the demonstration.

This gave us the rare opportunity to compare the original demonstration to what happened after the Yaffa revolutionaries joined in.

No doubt the most important thing was the voice of the Um Al-Fahm society, mostly young men and women in their teens and twenties, but also whole families, veteran activists and Knesset members from the National Democratic Alliance and the Democratic Front. They all came to speak up, condemn the killing and build public opinion to resist the unjustifiable and destructive violence in their town and in the Arab Palestinian society in general.

There were some 100 people in the demonstration, but when the Yaffa youth joined in, it was not only a matter additional numbers. The female activists with high spirits and great experience in shouting slogans took the lead and converted the demonstration to one of the best feminist protests seen in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.

Some slogans from the prisoners struggle could be used “as is” – receiving new meaning in the context. Like “we were not born to live oppressed, we were born to live in freedom!” Many more slogans were adjusted or invented: “Drop your weapon, women will not be intimidated”, “Young man and woman, struggling side by side for liberty”, “whoever beats is the weak one, he has no honor” and much more.

The demonstration warmed up and lasted much beyond the planned time.

Well, maybe I envy after all…

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Press Release

With the planned visit of the President of the United States, we do not turn to Obama – we do not expect him to change his policy. We turn to you, our sisters and brothers, inhabitants and refugees of this land, who are suffering from occupation, deportation and war, from racism and exploitation: Do not trust and do not expect anything from the dealers in occupation and war. We will bring the peace, we, the victims of the regime and its opponents, in our struggle for justice and freedom, despite their malice.

For decades they propagate illusions about the “peace process” – a process of dialogue between the rulers of the region under US Hegemony – which only aims at crisis management by those who profit from the continued occupation and war. This process allows the world to turn a blind eye to the existence of an apartheid regime that prevents Palestinian refugees to returning to their homeland, denies the rights of Palestinian Arab inhabitants, and maintains political and ethnic segregation and racial discrimination.

While Netanyahu and Obama talk about renewing the “peace process”, the American weapons industry continues to arm at full speed various regimes while Netanyahu is preparing the next war. Attack on Iran? Israeli intervention in Syria? A killing spree in Gaza? Either way, the inhabitants and refugees of this country and the people of this region will pay the price with blood.

All the country’s inhabitants pay the price of occupation and oppression, wars and militarization, directly and indirectly. The struggle for a just and lasting peace begins with the struggle for equal rights for all: for the return of Palestinian refugees, for the removal of the occupation, the elimination of discrimination in all its forms, and for social rights and concern for each person.

We, the residents of this land who want to live in freedom and democracy with equal rights for all – in our unity and struggle we will destroy the apartheid regime, smash the walls of separation, bring peace, return the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and establish the new society.

Full and equal rights for all are the basis

of living together in one country

Peace can be achieved by popular struggle against the occupation and the rule of racism and exploitation

During recent months a series of meetings were held in the city of Jaffa where activists discussed possible routes of action to promote the solution of one democratic state in historic Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Participants in these meetings were both Arab and Jewish, both female and male – activists from various movements and parties, involved in political, social, cultural and ideological activities.

Not utopia but a necessary solution to pressing problems

The program for One Democratic State is not a utopia but a practical plan to solve the pressing problems of this country’s inhabitants.

The majority of the Arab Palestinian people – the indigenous inhabitants of the country – were expelled from their homes in 1948. They were robbed of their land, homes and other property; their villages and towns were destroyed; millions of refugees were and are still today awaiting return; those who stayed in their homeland suffer occupation, racism and oppression.

For the Jewish inhabitants the system of privileges and apartheid exercised by the State of Israel places them in permanent conflict with their Palestinian neighbors and the other peoples in the region, turning them into cannon fodder for imperialist wars for hegemony over the region.

The regime, based on partitioning the population according to origins and religion, cripples any attempt to fight for a more just society. It turns the great majority of the county’s inhabitants into victims of oppression and exploitation. The continuation of this regime threatens to inflict more wars, thus endangering all those living in the country and peace in the region and the entire world.

We see the establishment of a common society not merely as a solution to many burning issues but also as an opportunity to build a new, better and just society based on fully equal rights.

We aspire to a society which respects all creeds, cultural heritages, and lifestyles, and treats them as a source for enrichment of the society as a whole. Democracy and full equal rights for all the inhabitants of the country, for its Arab Palestinian refugees and for their descendants means not merely the removal of oppression but also true participation in the political process. It means protecting and nurturing the social rights that allow all citizens to live in dignity, to develop themselves and to be partners in developing the society.

The Vision of the One Democratic State

We pursue the establishment of One Democratic State as a just and sustainable solution for the suffering of the Palestinian People. It includes and guarantees the return of the refugees and puts an end to occupation, apartheid and all forms of national oppression and racial discrimination. It guarantees an end to a decades-long conflict and achieves the integration of the Jewish inhabitants in the country through partnership rather than conflict.

The program enables all the inhabitants of the country and the returning Palestinian refugees to be full participants in choosing and shaping the political process. They will live as citizens with equal rights. The Democratic State guarantees security and peace for all and prevents discrimination, oppression and exclusion. It will promote social justice and develop the economy and society for the benefit and welfare of all inhabitants.

The Democratic State should be a civil state maintaining separation between religion and state. All citizens will be able to vote, to run for public office and to participate in the running of the government. The state will legislate and act in practice against all discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, color, language, religion, political or non-political views, national or social origins, property, place of birth or any other consideration.

We do not want to rewrite anew the program for One Democratic State, which we recognize as implementation of the simplest human and democratic principles. This idea guided the Palestinian Liberation Movement from its inception during the British mandate and during its renaissance in the 1960’s. It was also supported by peace-seekers within Jewish society. Supporters of this solution have published many books and articles and discussed it at many conferences in this country and abroad. We specifically refer to the Munich Declaration (July 1, 2012) as a concise and clear message defining a common denominator for many of this program’s supporters.

Having agreed upon joint action for the democratic solution, the partners to this struggle preserve their particular visions of the character of the future state and the best means to build a society that will guarantee the rights and wellbeing of its citizens. However, before all else we must unite to lay the foundations of the new one democratic state.

What is the group and how does it operate?

This Democratic Solution will materialize by means of discussion, advocacy, persuasion and public struggle using all legitimate channels enshrined in international law. Israeli policies of expulsion, occupation, racism, exploitation and oppression have led to suffering, destruction, wars and a total lack of hope for a peaceful and equitable solution. It is therefore of paramount importance to simply bring into public awareness that a solution is available and feasible. Joint action by all who are part of this solution, including both refugees in exile and residents from all over the country, may prove more potent than any plan advanced by the regime to preserve the status quo. In order to help create conditions for change it is also important to raise support for One Democratic State on popular and official level both in the region and throughout the world.

The Jaffa Group is open to all women and men who support the goals outlined herein and are interested in joining our activities.

It will communicate and cooperate with like-minded groups and movements and will encourage the establishment of similar groups both here and abroad.

The Jaffa Group functions through open discussion among all participants to create internal accord, and aims to reach decisions by consensus. What is agreed upon becomes the position of the group.

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Report to the activists for One Democratic State in historic Palestine

About the Jaffa ODS meeting – 6.11.2012

The invitation to the meeting was purposely limited, to allow more space for the development of discussion and in order to check to what extent activists from different tendencies and of different backgrounds can work together for the program of one democratic state in historic Palestine. 14 activists attended, coming from different parties, movements and organizations, Arab and Jews.

The foundation for the meeting

We discussed the previous efforts to work for one democratic state (ODS) in Palestine, including the two Haifa conferences (2008 and 2010) and the activists’ meeting in Munich in the summer of 2012. It was made clear that there is no ready-made movement that we can join, but we are part of a common effort to build a new movement that will unite all the supporters of ODS. We take part in the design of this new movement together with similar initiatives that already started in Bethlehem, Haifa, Ramallah and Gaza.

It was stressed that the ODS initiative proposes to establish a democratic state that will belong to all the residents of Palestine and all the Palestinian refugees and their descendants. This subject should be fully clear. Without this clear position, it is impossible to build trust between Arabs and Jews in the common struggle in the reality of occupation and Apartheid.

Previous and parallel experiences

As all the participants are also active in other movements and organizations, and their experiences in these frameworks partially overlap with the proposed initiative, a significant part of the discussion was dedicated to these experiences. We paid special attention to the experience of some of the participants in building a movement for real democracy to everyone, following the social protests of 2011. They emphasized the success of this initiative to reach many different strata of the Jewish public.

We also discussed previous initiatives in support of the one state, as well as more general experiences of left movements and democratic organizations to operate within the Arab and the Jewish public. We discussed various estimates about what limited the success, or even caused the failure, of these attempts.

The issue of secularity

Many of the participants are active in organizations that promote the perspective of a secular democratic state.

Some of the participants expressed concern that without an emphasis on secularism we lose an important aspect of our criticism of Israel’s character, which is based on its definition as a Jewish state and its reliance on religion and religious coercion. Some also expressed apprehension that a new constitution, if it will not be secular, will not preserve human rights and especially women’s rights.

On the other hand, some participants argued that in the general public, Arabs and Jews, there is a strong religious influence, and that under the banner of secularism it will be harder to enlist support for a democratic solution to the pressing problems of occupation, racism and war. It was suggested that the democratic content of political secularism can be included and clarified through the definition of the democratic character of the proposed state. It was mentioned that in the Middle Eastern context, especially in light of the Arab Spring, secularism is sometimes associated with anti-democratic trends.

What we try to establish

It was clarified that we are not building a new party or ideological movement. In this sense our ODS initiative is complementary and does not contradict the whole range of parties and movements that are active on the ground. The perspective of a single democratic state is designed to meet the lack of perspective for real, just and comprehensive solution, a solution that will put an end to ethnic cleansing, occupation, racism and endless wars.

This is an unprecedented attempt to establish a single democratic movement, working for an agreed political solution, in which all the inhabitants of the country and its refugees can take an active part.

The political base should be clear and propose a decisive change compared to the existing anti-democratic apartheid situation – but it allows all partners to retain their various positions on all social, economic and ideological issues. All these topics will be subject to discussion and political struggle within the democratic state when it will be established.

Next meeting – Tuesday 4.12 in Jaffa – discussion of the Munich Declaration

The participants expressed a desire to speed up the organizational stage so that we can soon go public and try to convince the wide audience about the desirability of one democratic state. To do this we need to have further discussions between us (and other activists) and try to agree on a common formulation of the primary things with which we will approach the public.

To focus the discussion, it was decided to discuss the Munich ODS declaration in the next meeting. We should conclude to what extent it can be used as the basis for our appeal to the public or should we formulate a different text.

It was agreed to hold another meeting in Jaffa on Tuesday, 20.11. Following the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, which required focusing all efforts in the struggle to halt it, the next meeting was delayed to 4.12.2012.